


As if through water from the bottom of a pool

by sparklingjoy



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff, Guardian Angel!Aziraphale, Human!Crowley, M/M, Mostly POV Crowley, Mutual Pining, Pining, Some references to literature and philosophy apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklingjoy/pseuds/sparklingjoy
Summary: Alternative Universe were Crowley is human and Aziraphale his guardian angel. Technically, they aren't supposed to ever meet but when they do it all goes pear-shaped.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my very first fanfiction! :)  
I will update each chapter individually but have already written a first draft of the whole piece, so there shouldn't be too much time between upd.  
Basically, this will be 13k words worth of pining with some plot.  
I'd love to hear from you in the comments!  
Since there's nothing left to say... Enjoy the story!

There was a brief period between the moment Crowley gained consciousness and the moment he felt the pain. Like the pause between heartbeats it lingered in the air and then it hit him. Hit him hard. So sudden and strong the pain crashed down on him that he couldn’t stop an anguished moan from escaping his lips. That’s it, he was going to die. This unbearable pain, it was bound to kill him, he was sure of that and once he was dead, hopefully someone –  


The pain stopped. As suddenly as it had come upon him, it left again and was replaced by a warm, heavy hand resting on his biceps. A bit puzzled he opened his eyes and blinked a few times to assure himself they still worked. Then he turned his head in the direction of the hand which, how he now found out, belonged to a blond man with remarkably blue eyes and a friendly smile. He seemed to be of the timid kind for as soon as their eyes met the man quickly averted his gaze only to look up again sheepishly a second later. Behind him, Crowley could just make out a few more identical beds – all covered in sterile white sheets which, in their state of absolute spotlessness, stood in stark contrast to the ill and wounded they were burdened to carry.  


So, he was in hospital. Great.  


‘And who are you?’, he asked the curly man who still hadn’t let go of his arm. ‘Don’t think I know you.’ The man smiled some more but his free hand betrayed him by fidgeting nervously.  


‘Oh, I – uhm, well, I am your guardian angel.’  


‘What?’ Crowley stared at him dumbly.  


‘Oh, don’t worry, dear, you won’t remember tomorrow. You’ve been put under a lot of medication, really, so you’ll probably think our encounter was just a dream.’ Then, as an afterthought he added: ‘I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing, showing myself to you. But you were under so much pain, surely it was my job to alleviate it.’ Crowley understood only half of what he was talking about, but the man sounded so genuinely concerned, almost desperate, that he had the inexplicable desire to comfort him.  


‘Nah, I think that was nice of you helping me. Hurt like a hedgehog giving birth, so m’glad it’s gone.’ The other man let out an amused chuckle at Crowley’s words.  


'Really, my dear? A hedgehog giving birth? Sometimes I find your methods of expression a little difficult to follow.’  


‘Yeah, I mean, they have all those little spiky thingies, what are they called again… Quills! That’s it, quills. Must hurt to give birth to one of those bastards. Imagine babies being born all covered in tiny little daggers. Would be the same, wouldn’t it?’ As Crowley had spoken, his head had begun spinning again and made it increasingly difficult to follow the blond man’s reply. He must have noticed it too, since the words stopped at once and grey-blue eyes, held captive by a worried frown, appeared above his face. ‘You have to rest now, Crowley, you’ve lost a lot of blood and there’s only so much I can do, even as your guardian angel.’  


‘M’fine’, Crowley murmured. Then: ‘You’re not really my guardian angel.’ It sounded more like a question than a statement and when the man didn’t answer, he added: ‘You can’t be an angel. Angels have halos. And wings. Where are your wings, hm?’  


Indeed, it couldn’t be argued that the person standing at his bed was lacking both wings and a halo even though his fluffy blond curls, illuminated by cold neon light pouring down from the ceiling, were eerily resembling the latter. No, he was just an ordinary, middle-aged man like Crowley himself. A bit heavier perhaps, which, admittedly, wasn’t too difficult given how Crowley’s black-clad, tight-jeansed legs had the tendency to look a lot like spider’s, and also dressed in a more old-fashioned manner (Was that a bowtie? A _tartan_ bowtie? Sweet Jesus, honestly!)  


‘Just because I don’t choose to parade them all the time, doesn’t mean I don’t have any wings!’, the man said haughtily, ‘I shall not simply show my precious feathers to ordinary people. I _have_ standards. Thank you very much!’  


Had this been a huff at the end? Had this grown man just ‘hmph’-ed like a petulant child? Crowley had to bite his lips down hard to stop himself from laughing and when he couldn’t hold it back anymore, he hid it clumsily behind a cough. The man glared at him disapprovingly which did nothing to stop Crowley. It felt so nice and warm to laugh again and something about this man was just… adorable, for lack of a better word. Adorable, reassuring and strangely familiar. Somewhere in the foggy swamp that was his brain on narcotics a tiny voice insisted he needed something to laugh about in his life right now and he had a vague feeling it had something to do with his inexplicable awakening in hospital and that dreadful events had brought it about.  


Quickly, he looked around for something to prevent this dangerous train of thought and found a welcome distraction in his supposedly angelic company, for the man was now smiling again, wide and sweet with but a pinch of mischief sparkling in his eyes. What had they just talked about again? Before Crowley had been reduced to giggles? Oh right, wings. ‘So, let’s assume, hypothetically speaking, that you have wings’, Crowley drawled, ‘Why don’t you just show me? After all, as you said earlier yourself, I won’t remember a thing tomorrow, drugged as I am.’  


‘Hm, well, if you put it _that_ way… I suppose, it won’t do any harm.’ And with that he unfolded pearly white wings, feathers smooth and shiny, though a little disorderly in their arrangement here and there. Barely concealed pride crossed his face as he saw first how surprised and then how impressed Crowley stared at him. Miraculously, none of the other patients seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.  


‘So, still don’t believe me, then?’, Tartan-Bowtie said, a smug infliction in his voice which was tinged heavy with amusement as he saw how hard Crowley tried to hide his amazement behind a thick mask of raised eyebrows and a sarcastic grin. Eventually, he gave in.  


‘So, you really are my guardian angel, then’, he simply said. _You must really suck at your job to land me in hospital_, his brain automatically provided which he almost said out aloud, too. Mild insults, preferably delivered in a witty, suave fashion, were one of his standard ways of communicating. That way, people didn’t get the wrong idea. After all, if you don’t pepper your conversations with little barbs from time to time (Don’t worry, though, it’s all just irony, isn’t it? Isn’t it?) everyone suddenly thinks you are going to be best friends for life and talk to each other about your feelings over canteen food. Crowley didn’t give a flying fuck about those superficial relationships and if he could avert them by always walking on the fine line between sarcasm and insult, that was fine by him. However, with the man in front him, his guardian angel apparently, he found his desire to be sarcastic surprisingly non-existent. Besides, he wasn’t sure the angel would react well to sarcasm. Some people got so easily hurt.  


Still, this unremarkable thought, and off-hand remark of his brain, nothing more than an instinct at this point of his career in the field of sarcasm – this very thought left an echo much louder than its insignificance should have allowed. Over his bog-brain the echo flew right into the rocky territory of his memory. And we all know, how the story ends when echo and rocks meet each other. The smallest pebble, when dislocated, send tumbling down an icy slope, will evolve into an avalanche…  


_Oh!_ His job! He had been fired from his job! That’s how he got in hospital.  


Almost immediately the avalanche of memories had buried Crowley who shivered at their chill. He had to close his eyes, that intense were the images. His mother’s voice (or should he say ‘his boss’s voice?) was resurrected in his eardrums, the sound of polished silver catching dust in a cupboard unbelovedly. ‘That’s it, you’re done here. Pack your things and go.’  


He remembered anger, rage even, incredulity, despair. What wrong had he ever done? The cars he had designed had always sold like ice cream on a hot summer’s day, the company had made a lot of money from his work. Why did they have to fire him? He had loved working there. Was it because of the information anonymously leaked to a journalist? His mother must have found out. It hadn’t been a big deal, though. Sure, there’d been a media frenzy for a few weeks. But in the end, the tabloid’s inflationary usage of ‘scandal’ had only resulted in an improvement of working conditions for the company’s employees (which had been Crowley’s intention all along) and slightly smaller profits than initially projected (which, given the fact they overall still made billions, wasn’t exactly the end of the world, right?).  


He remembered numbness, fury, then numbness again. He remembered getting into his Bentley, the only thing he truly loved in the world, loved it even though he spent most of his time designing futuristic cars and the Bentley was ridiculously old-fashioned, or maybe because of it. He remembered driving faster and faster, climbing up to 70 mph, 80, 90. Right there, in central London. There were screams and screeches of brakes in his memory, honking horns and then a bus in front of him on a crossroad, suddenly and yet to be expected.  


After that, blackness. Nothing more. Or… wait, there was one more thing. A girl. She was riding her bike across the street, without a helmet to protect her head…  


‘What happened to the girl?’ Crowley demanded violently. His guardian angel cast him a worried glance at the sudden outburst after having been in a kind of trance for quite some time. Instead of waiting for an answer, Crowley repeated his question with mounting apprehension. ‘What happened to the girl? Is she alright?’ Normally, he didn’t care about others in traffic. Didn’t care if someone had to pull the brakes hard because of him or if he had yet again ignored someone’s right of way. But harming somebody, _killing_ somebody, was something else entirely. Crowley could never kill anyone.  


‘Don’t worry, she is safe’, a soft voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘I made sure she is.’ The blond angel smiled at him sadly and took his hand which had an instantaneously visible effect on Crowley. His muscles relaxed, he closed his eyes and let out a relieved sigh as the news sank in. The girl was fine. He wasn’t a murderer. Fired, in hospital, talking to a bloody angel – all that, but no murderer.  


After a while, the angel started speaking again. ‘You must rest now. I dare say, that’s quite a rough state you’re in, my dear. Here, let me adjust your pillow a little bit… there, now you should be nice and warm. You should try to sleep now, re-‘  


‘What happened to your halo?’ Crowley blurted out before the angel could continue his monologue. He had no idea why he had asked this question in particular. It almost seemed to come from somewhere else.’  


‘Ah, right, my halo’, the angel looked very helpless and insecure, almost lost. ‘I suppose, I gave it away’, he murmured.  


‘You what?’, incredulity reverberated through the air but also confusion. ‘You can’t just give a halo away, it’s part of you!’  


‘Well, it was a part of me, yes, but seeing as the girl was in great danger - and she didn’t have a guardian angel, mind. Admittedly, there was a kind of protective aura around her, almost like a force field. But it wasn’t strong enough to protect her by itself. With a little help from my halo, however…You see, halos are considered powerful energy sources. I simply thought, of course it is my duty to protect you above others and you could have ended up with way less injuries had I ignored the girl but – I, I simply thought it would actually increase your suffering if the girl would die regardless of the benefits it might have had on your…your, uhm, body. Your physical wellbeing, that is.’ Clearly, the angel was very nervous about his words. He fidgeted, darted his eyes back and forth between Crowley and the floor and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down rapidly whenever he interrupted his unstructured rambling to swallow self-consciously.  


‘You let me suffer, because you thought I’d suffer even more if the girl had suffered?’, Crowley tried to sum up what he had just heard. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, my dear!’, the angel said earnestly and Crowley believed him. It felt so unbelievably, unexpectedly good to know that someone cared for him. Someone, who didn’t want to please him but wanted genuinely the best for him. Because the angel had been absolutely right: even if his injuries meant, he would limp for the rest of his life he would be able to live with it in one way or another. He would definitely curse it, often even, but there was still the chance to lead an enjoyable life. Had the girl died, on the other hand, he would have never got rid of the guilt. The memory of her face would have haunted him like Banquo had chased Macbeth. Like his personal sword of Damocles it would have rendered his life unbearable – no matter how healthy his body. The angel apparently knew him well enough to understand this aspect of his personality. He wasn’t sure he could say the same about his mother. Or anyone, really.  


While he thought all this he didn’t once turn his gaze away from the face in front of him, lost for words to express his gratitude and in the end settled for a simple ‘Thank you.’ ‘You are very welcome, my dear’, answered the angel softly and even though exhaustion, medication and the weight of too many shocking revelations in too short a time started to blur his vision and mute all the sounds of the world, Crowley still noticed how unnaturally pink those lips were and how warm and mellifluous the voice rang in his ears. More and more rapidly, his descent into oblivion progressed, even though he fought to stay conscious with all his strength. It was not right. There was still something he needed to do, needed to know before he could let his mind rest, if he only knew what. It floated around somewhere in the abyss of his brain… What was it? What in Christ’s name could it be?  


Then it came to him.  


‘Angel?’, he whispered faintly.  


‘Yes, my dear?’  


‘You never told me your name.’  


A pause.  


‘Aziraphale.’  


‘Aziraphale’, Crowley more breathed than said and with this last, melodious exhale his eyelids fluttered shut.


	2. Chapter 2

From the moment Crowley left hospital everything changed. For one, he had to look for a new job and ended up in a call center. An awful job with awful colleagues, Hastur and Ligur being the worst of all determined as they were to make his workdays living hell. His boss, Beelzebub, was better already. In fact, they were quite clever but frequent disappointments in life had made them wary and unsympathetic. Way better than his former boss though. The thought about her still hurt.

But the greatest of all changes was of a totally different kind. The point was - there was something missing in his life, or rather, someone. The more days went by, however, the more he began to suspect that it wasn’t a change at all and that in fact he had felt like this all his life without realizing. Indeed, the more he thought about it, he couldn’t deny he had never been good with other humans. It’s not that he didn’t like them – on the contrary, Crowley found people a generally quite fascinating concept and took some pleasure in moving among crowds. He liked the dichotomy of being physically close to so many people at once, of being able to listen in on the most privately whispered conversations, soaking in intimate secrets of an army of strangers and of being, on the other hand, one among a uniform mass, anonymous and insignificant, like a single ant among billions. 

What he just wasn’t capable of, though, was forming any meaningful relationships. Whenever he had been asked about his lack of friends or partners he had pretended to be a lone wolf. If, occasionally, his own doubts began to creep in he would dismiss them by pompously claiming he was just too cool and other people too bland for there to be an intersection in the Venn diagram of him and the others.  
Deep down he knew neither was true. He would have loved to be truly close to someone, would have loved to be known so that when he should lose himself he would know where to look.  
No one knew him, though, and Crowley had never met a single soul on this planet to whom he would have liked to open up. 

Until the day he woke up in hospital, at least.

Weeks had passed, since that encounter and still he remembered the conversation with the blond man, Aziraphale, almost in its entirety. It wasn’t exactly healthy how often he caught himself playing with the thought of deliberately getting injured or sick just to have an opportunity to talk to him again. He never carried out those plans in the end. It would have been stupid enough – all the pain just for a drug-induced fantasy. To his own annoyance, even though he knew it to be a dream (There was an angel involved, an actual angel! It had to be a dream. What else could it be?) he still couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Whenever his depressing new work, the estrangement from his family and former colleagues and the feeling of being perpetually misunderstood by humanity _out of spite_ overwhelmed him, he thought of the angel’s warmth, how he had called him ‘dear’ – him, Crowley, who had never even been allowed to call his mother by anything else than her full name and who, in turn, could count all the endearments directed at him in his life on one hand.

All this Crowley thought about and although it embarrassed him, he still found many fancy explanations for his burning desire of seeing the angel again. He only wanted to thank him properly, he told himself, for saving the girl. 

Or, on other occasions, he would say that he was simply curious about the scientific possibility of the existence of angels. Most of the times, he managed to convince himself and that was alright. 

However, even Crowley’s impressive powers of imagination failed to come up with an excuse for his daydreams about the sweet smile of outrageously pink lips matching lighter shades of pink on round cheeks when they blushed. So, he tried to avoid going on this tangent when thinking about Aziraphale and, maybe exactly _because_ of the repression he placed upon himself, failed more often at it than not. 

Hell, even when the world was good and the people in it nice to him he couldn’t help feeling suspicious of their intentions, disgusted by their phoniness and recoiled further into himself, rolled up like a snake and hissed at everyone who dared approach. Soon he began to think that the only one who didn’t seek to exploit him, who didn’t want to just please him, was Aziraphale. 

Since it all had been just a dream (it was a dream, don’t question it, don’t be a freak) this was a proper fucked up situation. Especially, as he began to question even the genuineness of the angel’s warmness towards him after a while. What if, in reality, Aziraphale had simply favoured the brown-haired girl on the bike? What if he had liked her better and didn’t care if he, Anthony J. Crowley, lived or died because he was fallen from grace anyway and why should anyone care? 

As those doubts manifested and deepened over weeks and months, until he was sure Aziraphale downright despised him, paradoxically he became more and more convinced it hadn’t been a dream after all. 

Aziraphale was real and hated him. 

Or, worse, he couldn’t care less about Crowley. 

_***_

As his guardian angel, Aziraphale was perpetually worried about Crowley almost by definition. But ever since they had met, things weren’t the same as before. Now, several times he had found himself so terrified on Crowley’s behalf for accidents as petty as cutting a finger on a piece of paper (there _was_ a chance of blood poisoning, after all, and blood poisoning is not a joke!) that he had been on the brink of paying Crowley a visit in a human body again - to better assess the damage. Luckily, each time this had happened, he had been able to stop himself in time. 

_What am I even thinking?_, he asked himself reproachfully. He knew Crowley was not supposed to see him, engage with him in any way. That was not part of a guardian angel’s job description. What had happened back then, in the hospital, had been a mistake. A foolish slip-up on Aziraphale’s part and certainly not to be repeated. It was bad enough Crowley seemed to remember the brief encounter, for sometimes he muttered the angel’s name in his sleep. 

Sleep – that was yet another source of great concern to Aziraphale as Crowley sometimes took two weeks off work and instead of going on holiday, he stayed in bed all fortnight, sleeping up to twenty hours a day. The angel knew his assigned human well enough to not be surprised at his complete lack of any social interactions but his increasingly reclusive behaviour did start to worry him. Even more alarming was the enormous self-loath that radiated thickly and hotly from Crowley’s otherwise stone-cold mind. 

A couple of months had passed since the hospital incident when Aziraphale snapped under the sheer weight of his worries for the other man. _I’ll visit him again, only once_, he thought, _just to share some advice on difficult times like that_. In the end, he was Crowley’s guardian angel and thus caring for him was his highest priority. Surely, everyone would agree with him on that? If She would have any objections to him engaging with his human, he could simply tell her how lonely and miserable Crowley had been, how obviously in need of comforting company.  
In situations like that, weren’t guardian angels encouraged, weren’t they even _obligated_ to intervene? 

When Aziraphale had finally built a fireproof stonewall around his resolution, every brick being another logical reason (to him) for his plan to be absolutely compatible with his angelic duty, he could breathe freely again for the first time in months. Gone was the uneasy prickle under his metaphorical skin and the constant anxiety for his human. 

And if, after said resolution, Aziraphale let out a relieved little sigh and if his non-corporeal heart thudded just a tad louder than usual, it was all down to the anticipation of a job well done. Or perhaps his angelic love for the world in general and his assigned protégé in particular rejoiced at the prospect of carrying out a good deed. 

His newfound euphoria had nothing whatsoever to do, though, with the aching he always felt whenever he thought of Crowley’s amber eyes, scorched from loneliness, and the shiver that went down his spine as he heard on repeat his own name, uttered in a breathy, shaky, broken voice by someone on the verge of oblivion. 

So soft, and still it ricocheted through his brain with the force of a bullet. 

_***_

After Aziraphale had resolved to make himself visible to Crowley once more, there remained only one decision to be made. He still hadn’t settled on the particularities of his upcoming appearance:  
Should he hijack Crowley’s dreams first to announce his endeavour - so as to not shock him too much? 

Or should he casually approach him, pretending to be human, at a public place, a crowded street, for instance? 

In the end, he chose to let his visit resemble the first one as much as possible, short of actually landing him in hospital again. Now he only needed to find a moment in which Crowley’s state of mind was as delirious as it had been back then on their first meeting. Before Aziraphale could think of any harmless methods to bring about such a state, an opportunity readily presented itself. 

It was a cold autumn night on a Saturday and Crowley was two glasses into his favourite bourbon wine. If champagne was the silk among drinks, wine was velvet. Soft and thick and dark red it swirled inside the spherical bowl of the glass as Crowley drew lazy circles into the air with its foot. When he lifted his chin a little he could see himself in the mirror on the opposite wall. 

There he was, all in black, as usual, sprawled out on an uncomfortably hard leather sofa which was supposed to make up for the marble-hard cushions with sleek, minimalistic elegance. His lips were stained from the rich, red liquor - in this light they looked positively pink, almost as pink as another pair of lips he once saw… 

Hastily Crowley took another big gulp and the warmness that subsequently tingled through his veins made him forget those dangerous thoughts temporarily. Several months and the vividly pink colour had not faded in the slightest on the picture he had stored in the recesses of his brain. His former self would have laughed at the pathetic state he had somehow sauntered into. 

Evenings like this one always went the same. First the alcohol would make him feel deeply content, warm and at ease. After that came a short period of giggles and silliness and then he would rapidly descent through maudlin and wistful all the way down to sad. Sometimes it was numb sadness and on other days more of a raging despair - but sadness all the same. 

Now, it was still too early for this phase, though. He was still supposed to feel nice and good for at least another hour and he’d be damned if he ruined a rare moment of pleasure with foolish thoughts. 

All the time, Aziraphale stood right behind him and watched. He was still in his invisible angelic form, a being of spirit which meant it wasn’t too late to cancel this whole ridiculous business. Crowley didn’t even seem to be suffering at the moment, in fact, wasn’t he rather enjoying himself, a good wine in his hands? 

_See, your intervention is not at all necessary_, he thought, _he is clearly coping remarkably well all by himself and, really, this has been a stupid idea all along_. Too worried, that’s what he was, had always been, too worried and way too soft. Then Crowley drained his wine glass in one swift motion and topped up, Aziraphale knew, had seen it often enough by now, that the bottle would be empty at the end of the evening and who was he even kidding, this was _not_ 'enjoying himself'. Clearly not coping. This was intoxication to the point, and with the intention, of vivid hallucinations because how else do you get whom you miss out of your head, and into the vacant seat next to you? 

_ _So, he had to make the appearance after all. Alright. _ _

_ __It’s all good, you are doing this simply out of concern for his wellbeing_, he reminded himself and after another deep inhale he manifested into a middle-aged man with soft features and white-blond, dandelion-junk hair. Tentatively, he stepped out of the shadow and came to a stand right in front of Crowley. _ _

_ _‘Hello, my dear’, he greeted him with a nervous half-laugh and, hurriedly, before Crowley even had the chance to react, he continued:_ _

_ _‘I know, it has been a while, you are probably terribly confused now, seeing me again after such a long time… not that it has been a long time for me, I see you all the time. Not in an inappropriate way, of course. I don’t spy on you and follow you around … well, admittedly, I do follow you around but only as part of my job.’ For Heaven’s sake what was he doing? This came out all wrong. Frantically, he searched for something to say to plausibly justify his sudden appearance but nothing came to mind. The truth was obviously out of question, it would sound horribly patronizing as if he didn’t expect Crowley to handle his problems alone. _ _

_ _With mounting horror he realized all the words he had neatly organized in his head before sounded either petty or patronizing now that he was faced with the task of uttering them. _ _

_ _Helplessly, he clasped his hands behind his back, rocked slightly up and down on his feet and darted quick glances in Crowley’s general direction from time to time. Each of those glances was accompanied with a more fervent blush of his cheeks than the last until his face was all pink and flushed. _ _

_ _

_ _By St. Boogar and all the Saints at the backdoor of Purgatory! He should have behaved the way a guardian angel ought to, it would have spared him this mortifying episode._ _

_ _Meanwhile Crowley was slowly lowering his sunglasses and when he spoke his voice trembled with disbelief. ‘Aziraphale?’, he asked, ‘angel, that you?’_ _

_ _The angel finally dared to regard him with a longer look which he immediately regretted afterwards for what he saw made his heart stutter violently and it took a few minutes to find its way back to regular, even beats. Crowley stared at him over the rim of his shades and his eyes shone with unguarded joy at seeing him. It did funny things to Aziraphale’s stomach to find himself at the centre of an affection that pure._ _

_ _‘Yes, my dear, it’s me. May I sit down?’, he gesticulated vaguely at an armchair opposite the sofa._ _

_ _ ‘course! Make yourself at home.’ Quickly Crowley got up and picked an empty wineglass out of the cupboard in the kitchen. ‘Care for some wine? 1983, fabulous year, you’ll love it.’ He poured Aziraphale a liberal amount of wine and flung himself back on the sofa. _ _

_ _‘So, what brings you here? Am I in mortal danger? You want to warn me, eh? Tell me I should not drink so much else I’ll die… Well, I’ll have you known there’s no need to tell me, I’m perfectly aware only –‘_ _

_ _‘Crowley’, Aziraphale interrupted him, ‘I didn’t come to warn you. I… just wanted to see you again, that’s all there is to it.’ Nervously, he sipped some wine and little fireworks exploded behind his eyes as sweetness filled his mouth and liquid warmth slowly trickled all the way down his throat. How could humans subject themselves to a sensation like that hundreds of times a day with every bite they ate and every gulp they drank? _ _

_ _‘You wanted to see me again?’, Crowley echoed dumfounded._ _

_ _‘Yes, you see, I do quite like you, Crowley.’ Aziraphale was surprised at his own words. He hadn’t meant to say them. Not least because they weren’t true. The only purpose of his visit was to secure Crowley’s emotional wellbeing, nothing more and nothing less. _ _

_ _Why was he making such a scene out of it? There had been a simple enough outline to follow: talk to Crowley about his problems, offer comfort and advice and then leave again. _ _

_ _But he didn’t have the heart to take the words back because now Crowley was smiling at him merrily like a child who finally, after years of begging, got a dog for Christmas and for some reason Aziraphale was quite sure he would smash this precious little smile into pieces if he took his words back and that was the last thing in the world he wanted._ _

_ _Oh bugger this for a lark, if he had deviated from his original plan anyway he might as well go all the way. Enthusiastically, he took another swig of wine and whether this was the source of his sudden heat or the way Crowley laughed with joy at the angel’s delight, he couldn’t tell._ _

_ _This night they talked and drank and talked some more until their tongues had gone heavy from alcohol and exhaustion. At the beginning they had had rather sensible conversations. Crowley had died to know more about Aziraphale’s duties as a guardian angel. Had he been present when Crowley had fallen from that swing as a kid and broken his arm? Did everyone have a guardian angel? Why did people still get sick and fall off cliffs then?_ _

_ _As the evening proceeded and larger and larger amounts of wine were transferred from the bottles into their bloodstream, the topics moved on to hedgehog mothers and the question whether their babies pierced them from within and, from there, to…_ _

_ _‘Tarantulas! That’s ma point, tarantulas. Y’know what the females do to the males when they mate?’ Crowley paused dramatically to give Aziraphale an important look out of his amber eyes sans sunglasses. When Aziraphale shook his head slowly he went on. ‘They eat’em. One second they fuck and next: nom, nom – bon appetit.’ _ _

_ _‘Uuuhhh’, Aziraphale made and giggled._ _

_ _‘Same with black widows. Do it too. A bunch of cabina-, caliba-, they eat themselves is ma point. Bloody freaks, eh?’_ _

_ _‘Mhm’, Aziraphale nodded in agreement, ‘hedgehogs are nothing by comparison.’ They both chuckled and fell quiet again. It wasn’t an uncomfortable quietness, however. On the contrary, they were both so at ease, so full of contentment that the very air between them, although no words were floating through it, brimmed with happiness. _ _

_ _From time to time, Aziraphale would make a little humming noise or sigh happily and each time that happened Crowley caught the feeling of those sweet sounds against his eardrums and stored them deep down in the secure safes of his memory where no one could take it away from him anymore. And like the monotonous rattle of a train or the jingle of rain drops against a windowpane help some people fall asleep, Crowley soon drifted away to the sound of Aziraphale’s reassuring hums._ _

_ _When the angel saw Crowley had fallen asleep he smiled wistfully and miracled a blanket to cover him. He tugged him in carefully and allowed the back of his hand to brush Crowley’s cheek in a most gentle way, as if by accident. Just as he turned to leave there came a murmur from behind. _ _

_ _‘Aziraphale?’_ _

_ _‘What is it, Crowley?’_ _

_ _‘Will you come back?’_ _

_ _‘Of course, dear.’_ _

_ _‘Good. That’s good… I’ve missed you angel. You are warm.’_ _

_ _‘Sleep well, Crowley’, Aziraphale managed to say before he went back to his spirit form to calm himself down. Part of him felt guilty for lying to Crowley about of course coming back. After all, he had only come back to help him out of the darkness his mind had been lost in and as soon as Crowley felt better visits like this one wouldn’t happen anymore. Admittedly, Aziraphale had quite enjoyed this evening and…_ _

_ _This wasn’t about him, though. Crowley needed comfort and that’s what he would get but not indefinitely. Only as much as was strictly needed. It just wasn’t fair to lie to Crowley and set him up for inevitable disappointment. _ _

_ _However, the longer Aziraphale floated above Crowley’s sleeping form, a messy knot of bony limps, impossible to untangle, the more he realized he hadn’t lied to Crowley at all. _ _

_ _Because, you see, every guardian angel is wrapped tightly in a cocoon of loneliness. Their hands always hovering right over the heads of their humans – to catch them when they fell but never to hug.  
Certainly not to be hugged. _ _

_ _And, in some way, this was alright because to a guardian angel a hug was nothing more than an abstract idea, just as wine-drunk, laughter-drowned conversations were nothing more than five words on a piece of paper._ _

_ _But when the ideas, the shadows on the wall of a cave, turn into a blinding reality, tell me: would you ever go back to live among the shadows again?_ _

_ _Do you really think an angel would?_ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Soon, no weekend passed by without Aziraphale and Crowley spending it together. It always started on Friday night with way too much wine and conversations which vacillated dramatically between the lyrically profound and the downright silly._ _

_ _On such occasions Aziraphale would share some funny anecdotes out of his large collection which came almost automatically with being a guardian angel for so many years. When Aziraphale couldn’t go on anymore because the memory of one of Crowley’s particularly idiotic moments had reduced him to laughter or when Crowley couldn’t bear listening to the story of his life (special edition with angelic commentary) anymore (whichever came first) it was Crowley’s turn to explain to the angel all the wonders of the modern world and Aziraphale would sit there, very still, and soak in every word from Crowley’s lips about human inventions, culture and customs with the utmost awe and delight._ _

_ _Whenever Crowley asked him why he was so infatuated with human affairs since they must surely seem childish compared to all the miracles angels could do, all Aziraphale did was shake his head and say with a mysterious smile: ‘Heaven is a pretty place, no doubt, but earth is positively exciting.’ _ _

_ _That gave Crowley the idea to explore firsthand some of the things Aziraphale relished hearing about so much. One night, as Aziraphale listened reverently to his description of museums, Crowley seized the opportunity and asked: _ _

_ _‘You must have seen a museum already, though, right? At least I’ve been to a couple of ones and since your job is to guard me or whatever by conclusion you must’ve been there as well.’_ _

_ _‘Well, yes, you see, I have been to museums. Whenever you went, I followed. But it’s not the same as experiencing it with a human body. Not only does touch feel different in this body, in fact, all the human sensations, including hearing and sight, are a rather unique variation of an angel’s perception. It’s almost as if… it’s almost as if their limitation is their true value.’_ _

_ _‘Whatcha mean by that?’, Crowley asked._ _

_ _‘I don’t mean it as in insult but, my dear, human senses, especially sight, are frightfully limited, really. The fraction of reality humans are capable of perceiving is so ridiculously miniscule it is bold to call it reality at all. In fact, I have the feeling that your brains decide what they want to experience before the actual experience takes place so that in the end you only sense what you wanted to sense anyway. And,’ Aziraphale added importantly, ‘I am not the only one with a theory like this. Have you ever heard of Kant’s categories of the mind?’_ _

_ _‘Must’ve, angel, else how would you know about them’, Crowley muttered drily._ _

_ _‘Well, apparently only one of us has paid attention then’, Aziraphale said smugly, ‘Anyway, Kant believed human brains to function only within certain categories which a priori shape their perception. For instance, could you imagine a universe without time or space? Or one without yourself in it?’_ _

_ _‘The last one’s easy’, Crowley said triumphantly, ’I mean, c’mon angel, anyone could do this. Just imagine you’re dead, is all. Easy.’_ _

_ _‘Ha!’ Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled with glee. He looked as if he had waited for Crowley to say just that. ‘Then, tell me Crowley, how does this world look like exactly, where you aren’t in?’_ _

_ _This question confused Crowley. ‘I mean, innit obvious? Everything looks normal, people, trees, cars. Just as usual but without me.’_ _

_ _‘Yes, fine, but from which point of view do you see the people and the cars and plants? You see them as if you looked through the eyes of a person, am I correct? The sounds you imagine, sound just like they would sound perceived through a human ear. But, tell me Crowley, are you also able to imagine the world in a completely different fashion? Not through the eyes and ears of a human which still is a sense of self - even if you decide the person should not be you - but, let’s say for instance through the eyes and ears of multiple humans, of every human on this planet. Can you imagine what it would look like and feel like to experience this planet not from a single person’s point of view but through eight billion pairs of eyes and ears, all at once?’_ _

_ _Crowley had to admit he couldn’t. Suspiciously he squinted at the wine glass in his hand, at the sofa he sat on and wondered whether reality could be trusted at all if his senses were flawed like that. He decided it was not a good idea to entertain such thoughts while half-drunk. _ _

_ _‘So, why do you think that's a good thing, then? These deficits?’ He asked the angel._ _

_ _‘Well, admittedly not many angels would agree with me on that.’ Aziraphale shifted in the armchair and did what Crowley had come to recognize as a sign he was nervous about his words: he glanced quickly at him, lowered his eyes only to look up again, cheeks slightly pink. Crowley had daydreamed about this expression so often that he could tell you the number but then sadly he’d have to kill you.  
‘But… it’s simply so personal.’ Aziraphale continued, ‘When perception is subjective, everything we see and hear and taste tells us something about ourselves. Every artwork I look on in this body whispers secret aspects about my personality into my eyes. That is precisely why, as an angel in your spirit form, you cannot admire art. You just see the molecules of the paint, the different configurations of atoms bound to each other but no emotions. No art.’_ _

_ _Aziraphale’s eyes took on a dreamy expression and Crowley sensed his opportunity._ _

_ _‘How about we visit a museum as humans, angel? We could go to the national gallery, if you like. The entry’s free.’ For a glorious heartbeat it almost looked as if Aziraphale would agree but then he looked away and murmured: _ _

_ _‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, Crowley. Look, I am an angel, your guardian angel admittedly, but an angel nevertheless and you are human. We are not supposed to spend time together like that.’ This hurt. It hurt so much Crowley found himself getting angry._ _

_ _‘But it’s okay to get me drunk every weekend so you can sooth your guilty mind by pretending that next morning I will have forgotten half of our encounter anyway? You know what, I won’t. I will remember every second of our conversation by tomorrow, as always.’_ _

_ _A pained expression crossed Aziraphale’s face. ‘Crowley, dear, you know I don’t mean to hurt you-‘_ _

_ _‘Do I?’, Crowley asked coldly. He could have added so much more. He could have told Aziraphale how he hated waking up with a hangover every Saturday, and more and more frequently, every Sunday morning as well. How it made his body sick and his mind aching and how he would have preferred to not have his precious memories tainted by his own drunkenness, soaked in wine so that they were all stained red whenever he examined them in the middle of the week while waiting longingly for the next Friday. _ _

_ _If he were honest with Aziraphale, he would have told him how he hated all those things but did them anyway because he would do anything to be with the angel. Hell, he would make himself end up in hospital every weekend if that was what it took. _ _

_ _He wasn’t even honest with himself, though. And deep down, he thought he had no right to complain anyway. Meeting his angel like this was more than he deserved and his dirty, greedy mind that always wanted more just proved the point. _ _

_ _‘I am sorry, Crowley, you are absolutely right. My behaviour towards you was absolutely appalling. But you must believe me, I did not intend to get you drunk… at the beginning maybe, yes, I assumed it would be easier to process for your brain but not anymore. We don’t have to if you don’t want –‘_ _

_ _‘S’alright, angel. Didn’t mean it that way’, Crowley murmured. He knew how Aziraphale loved wine and wouldn’t bloody spoil it for him, not for all the kingdoms of the world. Sure enough, the corners of the angel’s mouth quirked upwards almost imperceptibly into the ghost of a relieved smile. After a while he spoke again, fondness and regret warring in his voice._ _

_ _‘I would love to go to a museum with you only…not now. Will you give me some time?’ Crowley nodded silently. They stared at each other for a long time this evening and touched the wine bottle no more. Each of them was lost in his own thoughts about the other and each of them made a realization._ _

_ _Crowley couldn’t deny any longer that he was helplessly in love with this silly angel who made him feel so warm and safe and, frankly, had been lost from the first time they had met._ _

_ _Aziraphale’s realization was of a somewhat vaguer nature. For a brief moment he understood, crystal-clear, that there was more about those meetings than concern for his protégé. Slowly but dangerously steadily a flaming sun rose in his chest. Closer and closer it came to the surface where it would be carried by the waves caused by ripples of doubt right to the shore where his heart lay.  
He knew the name of this sun but didn’t dare speak it for once you know what it is called you can’t deny it any longer. And then, in the nick of time, he gained back control, covered the sea with cold steel of reason and breathed a sigh of relief in the light of an averted apocalypse. He wasn’t being stupid. Of course he only acted out of duty, there was nothing more to it, there couldn’t be. Guardian angels were not supposed to be in love with their protégés, what a silly thought and –_ _

_ _Oh! He had named the sun, after all. _ _

_ _Fuck._ _

_ _Aziraphale broke eye contact and reached for the bottle of wine. For the first time in his existence he longed to be awfully drunk._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Casually, visits of galleries and concerts, plays and restaurants, strolls in parks and through botanic gardens crept into their routine. Half of what they did would have normally bored Crowley to death. He couldn’t care less for another all too avantgarde adaption of another one of Shakespeare’s gloomy, overrated tragedies. Especially Hamlet annoyed him._ _

_ _How people could come to the theatre, many of them voluntarily no less, just to watch some random guy with depression being indecisive for three hours was beyond him. One time he had sat next to a goth teenager who had silently spoken along all the verses. Crowley hated to admit that despite his annoyance he couldn’t help being a little impressed._ _

_ _Even Hamlet was worth the pain, though, just to watch Aziraphale burst with delight in a million different ways. The angel’s eyes sparkled, he let out quite little hums and sighs and occasionally gasps of shock as he took in the actions on stage. Sometimes a worried little frown wrinkled his face only to be followed by smooth relief and a happy smile when the tension on stage was resolved. And every now and then Aziraphale would turn his head and smile at Crowley with such fond affection that he had to dig his fingernails deep into the armrests to stop himself from screaming. He would endure ‘to be or not to be’ for the rest of his life only to see this smile once more._ _

_ _Instead of wine in Crowley’s flat they now drunk wine in fancy restaurants and ate flamboyant desserts. _ _

_ _Well, Aziraphale ate flamboyant desserts. All their activities were expensive enough for Crowley as they were (even with the occasional miracle from Aziraphale) and, besides, his stomach did rather funny things whenever the angel fastidiously tapped his mouth with a napkin and declared how scrumptious his meal had been in an almost lustful voice._ _

_ _It was embarrassing for Crowley to admit but he couldn’t get enough of Aziraphale lighting up at experiencing the world through a human body and every sign of delight he gave was reciprocated a thousand times in Crowley’s own body. _ _

_ _Still, they only met on Fridays and the weekend which resulted into the time between Monday and Thursday starting to get unbearably long and lonely. _ _

_ _But then, the books happened. _ _

_ _In a particularly desperate attempt to fill the hole of Aziraphale’s absence Crowley tried to read a book one Tuesday night. It was ‘Master and Margarita’ by Bulgakov and Crowley had picked it up mainly because he had heard it was funny. After a few pages he got bored however - the characters all had strange, overly long Russian names and confusing nicknames that sounded nothing like their original ones and the plot was weird. _ _

_ _Just as he wanted to shut the covers and put it away, however, he felt a presence behind his back. It felt as if someone was watching the pages over his shoulders, softly breathing into his neck. He turned around and saw nothing, furthermore, the feeling vanished._ _

_ _It had been enough to give him an idea, though, so he continued reading. Indeed, after a few minutes he felt the presence once more, stronger this time and when he didn’t turn around it intensified, got gradually warmer until he could clearly distinguish it: Aziraphale was standing behind him! Well, maybe not standing, maybe he hadn’t adopted his corporeal form, but he was there nonetheless and not in his usual undetectable spirit form._ _

_ _So Crowley read on even though the story didn’t really do anything for him and from time to time, if he concentrated hard enough, he swore he could feel the air next to his right ear chuckle._ _

_ _That was the beginning of Anthony J. Crowley, bookworm against his will. Although, to be precise, it wasn’t exactly against his will. He simply had a slightly unusual motivation to read._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _The more time Crowley spent in this fashion, bored and annoyed out of his mind at work, slightly mollified in the evenings when he read by the warmth of Aziraphale’s presence or when his plants behaved well and bore beautiful fruit and flowers and positively ecstatic when the weekend arrived and with it his time with Aziraphale, the more he longed for a change. _ _

_ _He wanted to capture the fleeting beauty of the weekend and bind it to him, hold it close to his heart and never let go again. With all his existence he longed to be able to see Aziraphale when he couldn’t for the realization that Aziraphale was always there, right beside him but invisible nonetheless was excruciating to Crowley._ _

_ _In his most secret dreams and most vivid day-time fantasies he also imagined touching Aziraphale. Feeling the angel’s skin on his once more, just as he had back in hospital and never again afterwards. Pressing his own lips on those pink ones, just as an experiment: _ _

_ _Will you stain me? _ _

_ _Will my lips adopt the colour of yours, turned pink like when drinking wine?_ _

_ _Will kissing you make me drunk?_ _

_ _Crowley was long past feeling embarrassment at thoughts like this. He had accepted that his love for Aziraphale was different than it had been with any of his ex-partners. Then he remembered how he hadn’t dated anyone since Aziraphale had first appeared at his hospital bed and felt embarrassed at last._ _

_ _What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he behave like a stupid love-sick teenager?_ _

_ _But he could recite the answer in his sleep already. Aziraphale knew him. Truly knew him and liked him anyway. He believed Crowley was good, deep down. How he secretly longed for the angel to tell him he had a good heart, not fucked up from inside. To hear those words whispered into his neck, an absolution he never cared about from God but now was dying to hear from an angel. _ _

_ _They were on their way home from a late-night screening of ‘The Danish Girl’ when he couldn’t hold his desire back any longer. Just as they walked through the dark shadows of St James Park at night he stopped in the middle of the way and said: _ _

_ _‘You don’t have to go back to your spirit form all the time, y’know? I mean, you like being human better anyway, you said it yourself. How being an angel is boring n’all. You could even stay at my place, if you like. I don’t mind sleeping on the sofa.’ A pained expression crossed Aziraphale’s face. _ _

_ _Damn. Crowley had royally fucked up. _ _

_ _Hastily he tried to salvage the salvageable and went for an explanation: ‘It’s just… why does everything have to be so clandestine all the time? Y’know, only on weekends and… things. Come on, angel, you know what I mean!’ He couldn’t persuade the words in his head to come out making any sense and got exasperated by it._ _

_ _‘Crowley, no. That is impossible. I don’t even want to think about what heaven would do to you if they found out you attempted to make me your partner in crime. It’s absolutely out of question for a guardian angel to team up with their protégé. Just imagine what would happen if every guardian angel did this. The most dangerous villains could get away with their heinous crimes unscathed under the protection and with the help of their angels. It’s impossible, Crowley, you must understand that. You would get yourself into real danger, danger I could not possibly protect you against.’ In the end, his tone had almost become pleading but Crowley didn’t notice for something else had caught all his attention._ _

_Partners in crime? Protégé? _ Was that what they were to Aziraphale? He hadn’t dared to hope for the word ‘lovers’ but friends at least? Despite all his doubts he had assumed Aziraphale viewed him as a friend. 

_ _Well, he had obviously been painfully wrong all the time. _ _

_ _‘Partnerssss in crime?’, he hissed, ‘Oh, no offence, but I can think of a million candidates better suited for that job. In fact, _anyone_ would be better suited than you. When you’d be captured there wouldn’t even be a need to torture you for secret information the only thing they needed to do would be holding a crepé in front of your nose and you’d spill all the secrets you’ve got.’ He laughed bitterly and watched the ducks sleeping innocently in the water next to him because he couldn’t bring himself to look at Aziraphale’s undoubtedly hurt expression. _ _

_ _‘Very well’, came the strained reply after a while, ‘glad to see, the feeling is mutual.’ Then the angel vanished into thin air._ _

_ _‘Ha! You think that was a dramatic exit, eh? Miles from it, angel, light years even. You are sooo predictable, you know that?’_ _

_ _Crowley insulted and cursed the air around him furiously until the ducks woke up from all the shouting and began to flutter around wildly._ _

_ _‘Oh, _come on_’, Crowley yelled at them, ‘Don’t pretend I have woken you. How can you even hear me without any ears? Hm? You only want to make me feel bad.’ _ _

_ _Pacing angrily he looked up at the sky and screamed at the top of his lungs: ‘YOU ONLY EVER WANT TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD, YOU LYING HYPOCRITE!’ _ _

_ _Nobody answered. What a surprise. On his way home Crowley felt lonelier than he had in a long time._ _

_ _He took the following week off work and spent most of it in bed._ _


	3. Chapter 3

It was a nice day. All the days had been nice this week. To Crowley, though, the only positive thing about the uncharacteristically bright February sun was that nobody stared at him because of his sunglasses.

Other than that, he had hated how cheerfully the blue sky had been laughing at him all week, mocking his depressed mood and taking away all the drama from his gloomy, all-black appearance .  
Thankfully, the offending orb had already settled when he walked home from work on Friday night. Lost in his thoughts as he was, he only realized the grave mistake he had made when it was already too late:

He had taken the route that led past Mr Young’s bookshop. Now that he had seen it, he couldn’t turn back anymore. His feet carried him to the well-known shop windows automatically while his brain unhelpfully supplied countless memories of Aziraphale in said bookshop.

Aziraphale browsing through the books, caressing their spines full of reverence. 

Aziraphale grinning and waving at him through the shop window, his fingers all wiggly and cheeks flushed, whenever Crowley went outside for a smoke.

On one memorable occasion, Aziraphale had sat down on one of the comfortable armchairs in the rear part of the shop, a copy of ‘The Remains of the Day’ in his hands.

‘Don’t get too comfortable, angel’, Crowley had teased him,‘we have tickets for the theatre tonight, remember? The play starts in about six hours.’ 

Aziraphale had given him the usual disapproving glare he reserved especially for all the times Crowley made fun of him.

‘Don’t be silly, Crowley, I just want to read a few pages. Decide whether or not I like the book. It would be a bit of a waste of money to buy it otherwise.’

Technically, it was Crowley’s money anyway, but he didn’t mention it. Aziraphale always got awfully upset whenever he remembered he couldn’t pay Crowley back (because miracles where just not the same, they both knew). 

‘Yeah whatever, angel’, Crowley had said lazily while he had somehow managed to perform the minor miracle of sprawling out on a wooden chair opposite where Aziraphale sat.

And so the hours passed by, customers came, looked at the odd pair suspiciously and left again. The sun set, a few kilometres away curtains were drawn to a play they had been planning to see…  
All the time Aziraphale’s eyes were fixed on the pages, Crowley’s eyes were fixed on Aziraphale and both relished the beauty in front of them. In a way, Crowley indirectly read the book as well, for every time the angel laughed (only to quickly place a hand on his mouth afterwards and blush as if he had done something indecent), he had to smile too and whenever a frown wrinkled Aziraphale’s forehead, he mentally snarled at the author not to dare break his angel's heart by ending the book on a sad note.

At around nine p.m. the shop owner, a young man called Adam Young, had come up to them and said: 

‘I’m really happy to see you like the book so much, sir, but I want to close the shop now. Dog still needs his night walk. You can come again tomorrow to read the rest.’ 

Aziraphale had looked back and forth between Mr Young and Crowley with great confusion and then his eyes had fallen on the clock above the door. Even now, months later, Crowley could still remember every single detail of Aziraphale’s expression when the penny had dropped. The incredulity, the embarrassment, the confusion. 

He could hear the angel’s stammered apology in his head, loud and clear. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I must have… totally forgot myself… so terribly sorry… Goodness, already way past closing time.’  
They had bought the book in the end and Aziraphale had performed a few miracles to make sure Mr Young would have a particularly enjoyable evening. When they had left the shop Aziraphale had apologized a thousand times to Crowley as well, but Crowley just smirked at him in return, which had made the tips of the angel’s ears go all pink.

All that and many more memories returned to Crowley in a swirl of emotions as he stared blankly at the volumes displayed in the shop window in front of him. It was nearly two weeks since he had last seen the angel after their argument which, in hindsight, had been so pathetic it didn’t even deserve to be called that. 

Why was he so emotional about it, anyway? Hadn’t he lived without for more than four decades before they had met? Hadn’t he been mostly happy, then?

Now, however, two weeks were apparently enough to make him sob in front of a book shop like a lonely loser. Angrily he wiped away the tears and turned to go when he noticed a red poster on the shop door. It announced the upcoming closure of the shop and a fifty percent discount on every book. Crowley needed a moment to process this information.

The shop was about shut down. 

Aziraphale’s favourite book shop would close and should his angel ever go back to his human form and wander these streets in search for something to read, merrily whistling in anticipation of a thick volume and plush armchair, he would be so gravely disappointed to find himself standing in front of a gym instead. 

Or a tattoo parlour.

Or one of those mysterious places that pretended to do séances at daytime but miraculously transformed at night into shops that provided entirely different kinds of services.  
Maybe Aziraphale was watching even now, in silent horror at the state one of his most beloved places was in.

_So what?_, Crowley thought defiantly ,_ that’s not my bloody problem, I’ll be better off forgetting this ridiculous personification of poshness anyway. _  
He turned and took two experimental steps away from the window.

A few seconds later he was up at the front door, banging loudly against the weathered wood and firmly ignoring the‘closed’ sign inches away from his nose. Occasionally, he would even add a well-timed ‘Open the door’ for good measure. 

_What the hell_, he thought, _this angel will be the death of me anyway, so if you gotta go, why not go with style_. 

Crowley to the rescue, he had to admit he liked the sound of it. Maybe his old penchant for action heroes was shining through. 

After two minutes of restless knocking and shouting, a furious-looking woman opened the door. 

‘Since you _obviously_ can’t read, I fail to see what you should want in this shop’, she snapped with a pointed look at the ‘closed’ sign. 

‘Yeah, sorry about that’, Crowley said in what he thought was a disarmingly apologetic tone, ‘you have to let me in, it’s urgent.’ 

The woman’s expression darkened. ‘No, I don’t. The times when women had to carry out every stupid man’s command are over. Goodbye, asshole.’ 

Crowley panicked. The woman didn’t understand, he only wanted to help. ‘Wait! Don’t close the door! _Please_.’ 

But it was too late, she had already done just that. He sat down on the doorstep and buried his head in his hands. For somebody’s bloody sake he had to come up with something and quickly at that. 

Shit. 

And there he had been, mere seconds ago, fancying himself an action hero. 

How did this work again? Solving problems? The ones you couldn’t just ignore until they became so large you weren’t able see them anymore which always made you almost cry in relief until it dawned on you that they weren’t gone – no, you fool, the reason you can’t see them is the same why people on Trafalgar Square can’t see England. 

Shit. _Shitshitshit_. 

The truth looked like this: Since he had been fired from his old job for attempting to improve working conditions, Crowley hadn’t solved a single problem with more significance than preparing a meal with only a jar of mayonnaise, some old cheese and tomatoes in his fridge (even then, he’d ordered take away). Whenever life had beaten him down recently, he had answered by sleeping, watching TV, planning and waiting for Aziraphale’s next visit or, if he had felt particularly energetic, yelling at his plants. 

This time, however, there wouldn’t be a next visit from Aziraphale. 

He had pushed away the only person he’d ever truly loved and there wasn’t a prospect of future meetings to distract him from his problems anymore. 

So, if he didn’t want to give up and just sleep, if he was serious about going with style, there was only one way out, really. 

He had to act. He had to fight. 

If he couldn’t have a future, if he couldn’t even have a present with Aziraphale, then he’d fight with bare teeth over their shared past. 

Nobody had the right to take away his memories of fluffy blond hair and pink lips and all the little things that reminded him of his angel. Crowley vowed to keep them safe. 

And he’d start right here, with the book shop. 

_***_

The weekend flew by in a flurry of activity. In fact, Crowley was so busy that he almost didn’t notice Aziraphale hadn’t showed up the second weekend in a row. Luckily, all the calls and visits he made provided an effective distraction to this depressing truth. 

He had returned to the book shop first thing on Saturday morning to offer Mr Young (or Adam, how he insisted Crowley call him) his help regarding the future of the establishment. The woman from last night had been there too (she was called Pepper, apparently) and two friends of theirs called Brian and Wensleydale. 

After Crowley had finally managed to convince even Pepper he was no spy for ‘the Reaper Man’ (that’s how they had christened the owner of the building the shop was located in), Adam confided in him what had brought about the shop’s impending closure. 

A few days ago, Reaper Man had told him he needed the building for something else and since Adam only rented the space and because of some miniscule footnote on page 17 paragraph four of the rental contract, that meant Adam had to leave within two weeks. 

Since it was impossible for him to find a new place to sell his books and do all the accompanying paperwork at such short notice, this meant he had to leave the book selling business, for the foreseeable future at least. 

Crowley quickly did the math: There were still eight days left to find a solution. Plenty of time to make some important calls. With grim determination he left the shop a short while later and set to work.  
First, he contacted the journalist to whom, a long time ago (in another lifetime it seemed), he had leaked the information about poor working conditions at his old workplace. The report had been her breakthrough story and had landed her a job as chief editor of an economy newspaper. He was sure she would be willing to help him in return. 

Indeed, after two calls, a few texts and a short meeting in a café he had all the information he needed to get Adam out of his predicament. The journalist had given him the number of an ominous woman called ‘Agnes Nutter’ who, apparently, had become something of an urban legend among solicitors and law students. 

Rumor had it, in all her life she had never lost a case despite never having studied law in university. It was even said, she had never actually stepped over the threshold of a courtroom once. Instead, solicitors came to her as a last resort when their case seemed lost and with one measured look she would tell them whether she’d help them or not. 

If Agnes Nutter agreed to help you with your case, you could be sure as hell of your victory. 

If she, on the other hand, refused, your failure was equally certain. 

No one understood where her knowledge came from, nor did many people know how to contact her for she seemed to change her address and phone number faster than lightning. 

Crowley wasn’t aware of it when he typed the digits into his phone but the hastily scribbled numbers adorning the inconspicuous piece of smudged paper he hold in his left hand was currently worth more than twice his entire savings on the solicitor’s black market. 

_***_

‘Come in, young man!’, a deep, sonorous voice roughed up by years of smoking called through the door which Crowley hadn’t realized was ajar. After a short moment of hesitation he stepped inside. There was a woman sitting on the kitchen table, facing the door expectantly. Physically, she looked maybe twenty years older than him but her eyes radiated wisdom as old as time itself. 

‘I see’, she said as she let her gaze wander over Crowley, ‘you are hurt in love.’ 

‘What?’ Her words had caused him to almost trip over his own feet and while he caught his balance on the back of a chair, he stared at her, irritated and slightly panicked. Did it show that much? 

‘Don’t worry’, Agnes Nutter laughed, ‘you fear asymmetry when the symmetry there shall be between the two of you is more complete than ever has been heard of.’ 

When Crowley didn’t reply to that she simply said: ‘trust me, you will understand’ and picked up a heavy book from the shelf next to her. 

‘This is my opus magnum’, she informed Crowley proudly and indicated to the empty seat opposite from her. ‘Do sit down, we have a lot to talk about. Everything we need to know is in this book. With its help Mr Young will have his shop back in next to no time.’ 

_***_

It turned out Agnes Nutter had been right. With her help Adam’s solicitor was able to spot a tiny mistake in page 23 paragraph two of the rental contract which rendered the whole document unlawful. 

Reaper Man was informed about this matter and privately they decided that a lawsuit would be a bit of an exaggeration really, so why not simply speak of the whole affair never again? And, while they were at it, neither did the flaw in the contract ever have to be mentioned, did it? 

Thus, the book shop stayed and even though Crowley didn’t have it in him to truly be happy at the moment, something akin to pride flared up in his chest that night as he lay in bed. 

He fell asleep not as lonely as he had become accustomed to and feeling maybe, just maybe, a little bit like the hero in an action movie who had once again saved the day. 

_***_

The annual company party of the call center Crowley worked for was scheduled for next Saturday and only the persistently confused state his mind had been in since he had payed Agnes Nutter a visit a couple of days ago would explain why he decided to attend it. 

Normally, he would rather dive into a puddle of burning sulphur than go to the party of the Hello-Call-Center. All you had to know about Crowley’s workplace was the fact that some years ago vandals had demolished the company building and had removed the ‘o’ from the big, shiny brass letters that hung over the entrance and proclaimed the company’s name to any passerby who accidentally entered the dilapidated street it was located in. In all this time, no one had bothered to replace it because apparently even the owners had to admit the new name spoke a certain truth. 

Still, Crowley went to the party. It was awful, as was to be to expected. The dingy cafeteria had been cleared of tables for the purpose of having a dance floor. When the lights were dimmed, a crappy DJ started mixing his tapes and colourful flashing lights made everyone in the room go dizzy, the resemblance was indeed uncanny – at least for the company’s standards. 

Crowley spent his time at an improvised bar and amused himself by watching his colleagues’ atrocious dance skills. 

‘I would have liked to take him to a club one time’, he muttered as the bartender refilled his glass. 

‘Sure, man’, the bartender said and moved on to a giggling couple who asked for shots. 

‘Imagine, angel, you on a dancefloor. Complete with your waistcoat and tartan bowtie.’ He let out a strangled sound that could have been a laugh or could have been a sob and buried his head in his hands. Did the memories have to haunt him everywhere? He would have thought Aziraphale, having standards and all, wouldn’t allow even the memories of himself to enter such a shabby place. He would have thought he would be spared all the pain at least for one evening. 

Well, apparently that was him asking for too much again. 

There was only one thing he could do then: get drunk out of his mind. 

Just as he raised his head to look for the bartender, though, he felt something. Someone. A familiar presence, right there, behind him. Slowly, he turned his head and there he was. Complete with his waistcoat and tartan bowtie. 

‘Aziraphale’, he gasped incredulously, ‘I- I thought…I mean, you- you said, you wouldn’t… what- what are you doing here?’ 

The angel smiled at him warmly but something was different from the way he remembered the angel. It was neither his usual sheepish smile accompanied by a blush and precipitated by a quick double take nor was it his cheeky grin where his eyes sparkled with just enough mischief for Crowley to question his angelic nature. 

This smile was warm and open and not a trace insecure, as if Aziraphale had finally let his guard down and decided to show Crowley his real face and… 

‘Oh my God and all the saints, he loves me back’, Crowley thought before he could stop himself and, curiously, he also didn’t stop himself afterwards. 

Where normally would have been doubts and self-loathing and _nobodylovesyouespeciallynothim_ there was now just Aziraphale who looked at Crowley with deep, hungry eyes as if he was the only living thing in the world. 

‘Crowley’, Aziraphale said slowly and the pure _delight_ in his voice nearly killed Crowley. ‘I thought I’d ask my favourite human for a dance since no one else seems inclined to do so.’ And then the absolute bastard had the audacity to flash him a cheeky grin. 

Holy fuck, how did they go from not talking to each other to _cheeky grins_? 

Crowley swallowed hard. He was in no way prepared for this, especially not after assuming he had lost Aziraphale forever. 

‘So?’, Aziraphale asked when Crowley didn’t answer and gesticulated from them to the dance floor. ‘Do you want to join me?’ 

‘Ngk…yeah. B-but – I can’t dance. Only know the waltz, angel.’ God, he sounded pathetic. 

‘Then a waltz it shall be!’, Aziraphale exclaimed happily and extended a hand to Crowley. He took it tentatively and did his best not to stop breathing at the feeling of the angel’s soft skin on his.  
‘May I?’, Aziraphale indicated to his sunglasses. Crowley simply nodded for fear his voice would crack should he try to speak. Gently, Aziraphale removed the glasses and put them on the countertop next to them. Then he led Crowley right through the dancing crowd into the very heart of the dance floor. He put his free hand around Crowley’s hips and smiled at him encouragingly. Slowly, hazily as if through water from the bottom of a pool Crowley registered what happened. Still, he couldn’t believe his eyes, it was simply too good to be true. 

What had the angel said about human perception again? We only see what we want to see? Could he only be imagining Aziraphale because he had missed him so badly? His back felt solid enough when Crowley placed his hand there carefully – then again, wasn’t touch just another sensation like sight and hearing was? 

It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be true. 

He was drunk and when he would wake up tomorrow the pain would be worse if he allowed himself to indulge this fantasy now… 

‘Angel?’ 

‘Yes, my dear boy?’ 

‘Are you… are you real? Really here, I mean?’ His voice sounded so lost, so broken, Crowley hated himself for it but he had lost all control over his mind and body by now. At some point, he had plunged himself into the roaring sea and now he had to deal with the consequences. 

‘I am always where you are’, Aziraphale answered delicately. Self-consciousness had returned to his eyes. 

‘That’s not what I meant, angel’ 

‘I know it’s not what you meant, heaven, don’t I know it.’ Aziraphale burst out suddenly, looking frustrated with himself. ‘I do believe, I owe you an apology, Crowley, that was terribly rude of me to just disappear like that. After all the kindness you had showed me and what you did with the bookshop… Oh, you really are such a good person, you know that Crowley?’ 

‘Shut up’, Crowley grumbled and silently cursed himself for agreeing to take off his sunglasses because he had the dreadful suspicion he was about to well up. ‘Didn’t you want to danccccce?’ he more hissed than asked, as he always did when he got emotional. 

‘Yes, right. A waltz, wasn’t it?’, with these words Aziraphale closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. Then the crease between his eyebrows smoothened and his crumpled face transformed into a mask of pure bliss. Crowley had seen this expression before, countless times. 

When the angel had taken the last bite of a particularly delicious desert, the remnants of its sweet, sweet taste still imprinted on the tip of his tongue, when they were at a concert and the last echo of Shostakovich’s seventh symphony hovered in the air triumphantly, when he had finished a beautiful story and needed a moment to wallow in wistfulness before he could catch up with reality again.  
All those little moments Crowley had kept close to his heart, even more so when he had had all reason to believe he was never to see it again. Now that it totally unexpectedly appeared again, it was almost enough to make him crack, to spill all the forbidden words that would scare the angel away once more. 

_Let me make you smile like that over and over again until the end of times, that’s all I ever wanted. Believe me, angel, I’ll do anything you ask of me and if you tell me to walk on water I will, because I trust you. Even if it hurts like Atlas carrying earth, even if I’m scared like Orpheus in the underworld, I still lay my heart before you, naked and unprotected. Red, hot, covered in slimy blood, ripped out of my chest with my bare hands. _

_And it hurts but it’s worth it and I’m scared but I won’t turn around because I trust that you’re there, right behind me. _

_I love you. I love you so fucking much._

Luckily, before Crowley could speak a single word, Aziraphale opened his eyes again and looked at him with the same deep, calm expression he had worn when he had arrived earlier this evening. 

It looked like love, yes, but not the fiery, passionate kind, more the kind that had been growing steadily and was now a giant oak tree you could lean against and rest and it wouldn’t break, never break. 

Crowley drunk the stare hungrily and bathed in it. Still, he didn’t dare say anything because as solid as oak trees were, a single blast of a lightning was enough to make them go aflame. 

‘Are you ready to start dancing?’, Aziraphale asked gently, after a while. It was hard to tell whether minutes or hours had passed by as they had looked each other in the eye. 

‘Don’t be ridiculous, angel, we can’t waltz to _this_ music in the middle of a packed da – _Oh!_’, Since when were they all alone? Surrounded only by warm, enveloping darkness and music, as he had never heard before, coming from all directions at once. It sounded as if you could waltz to it, indeed. 

‘Do you like it, my dear?’ 

There was a big lump in his throat so Crowley only nodded. Then he thought better of it and added a croaked ‘it’s perfect’. 

They danced. Alone in the world they danced and to an outsider it would have looked clumsy and awkward but they were so drunk on each other’s presence (and in Crowley’s case also a little bit of something else) they didn’t notice any imperfections. 

Crowley could feel the other man’s heart beating against his own chest, he smelled vanilla and the pages of an old book, sweet yet powerful, innocent yet full of knowledge. And was that cologne? Did angels wear cologne? 

Maybe one, maybe six hours passed by before they spoke again, it was hard to tell and all the time they continued their pas de deux in silence, only having eyes for each other. They danced like two deep sea divers at the bottom of the ocean, like two mountaineers on the summit of Mount Everest, like two astronauts on the moon. Stuck together in this wicked universe, not knowing whether they’d ever make it out alive and too far removed from any other being to care about anyone else then their respective partner. 

Eventually, Crowley broke the silence. ‘What made you come back, angel? I thought you were gone for good.’ 

Aziraphale took a while to answer. ‘I came to agree to your proposal from that night. Your suggestion about… about me settling for my human form permanently and us…living together. As friends.’  
This caught Crowley totally off-guard. ‘After everything you said?’, he whispered, dumbfounded. 

‘Well, we _are_ friends, aren’t we?’ 

When one part of a cloud is positively and the other negatively charged there is this one point, the point of no return, where the tension gets so high it resolves itself in one big strike. This meteorological phenomenon is commonly known as a lightning. 

_Well, we are friends, aren’t we?_ was Crowley’s very own point of no return. 

‘I’m in love with you, angel’, he blurted out. ‘You are my friend, yes, but I’m also in love with you.’ 

Between a lightning and a thunder there is always a moment of silence. A moment, where the only sound comes from falling raindrops… or two hearts pounding in unison against each other. In moments like this, you could be led to believe that lightnings are harmless, beautiful paintings of the sky, like the northern lights. You almost forget the danger they impose, the destruction they can cause to powerful oak trees… 

Until you hear the thunder: ‘You go too fast for me, Crowley.’ 

Aziraphale’s face shone with regret and sorrow. His voice was weary and soft but in Crowley’s ears the words roared loudly. They crashed and rumbled. 

_Too fast, too fast, too fast_ – on repeat. 

One by one, the dancers appeared again around them. Heavy beats superimposed the ethereal waltz until the latter had vanished completely. Their shared moment was over, broken. Dizzily Crowley stumbled backwards, ran into all sorts of people. Aziraphale still stood there, in the middle of the dance floor. Frozen in time, frozen with regret but without the strength to overcome his stupor. One last time Crowley looked at him, then panic got hold of him and he turned and ran away. 

Once he had left the cursed building, he didn’t stop. Faster and faster he ran down the streets without noticing where his feet carried him until he found himself under the familiar trees of St James’s Park. There he dropped to his knees at the water’s edge and tried to catch his ragged breath. The exertion from running served as a welcome distraction for some time, chasing away all unwanted feelings with the searing pain in his lungs. 

But all too soon he had calmed down again and the implications of his actions came crushing down on him. Why did he have to this? He’d just got Aziraphale back, he’d been given a second chance and of course he had to fuck it up within hours. 

That’s what he got for being greedy. Hadn’t Aziraphale offered him friendship? Hadn’t he even agreed to living with Crowley? Why hadn’t that been enough for him? Why the bloody fuck did he always, ALWAYS want more, more than he deserved? 

The stars on the sky above shook around violently. Crowley was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to look like that. Nothing about this whole situation was supposed to look like that, he was supposed to be back at his shitty workplace dancing with Aziraphale. 

As Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and his bad luck, and Above, and Below, he only heard the hesitant footsteps and shaky, nervous breathing when they were directly behind him. Embarrassed, he wiped over his face with his sleeve and stood up with as much dignity as he could muster. 

‘Crowley, I, uhm, all I wanted to say is -’, Aziraphale had come to a halt just in front of him. He’d only have to raise his arm, stretch out his hand… ‘please, Crowley, promise you won’t leave me again’, he whispered. Then he took Crowley’s face in his warm hands and – 

_Oh!_ kissed him. 

‘Of course, I love you back’, he breathed between kisses, ‘I’m so, so sorry Crowley, I shouldn’t do this to you.’  
The words didn’t make any sense to Crowley but he didn’t care. His head was filled with the wonderful sensation of Aziraphale’s lips against his, the soft, fluffy curls under his fingers, hot breath on his cheek. The angel had seized his lapels now and drew him ever closer. 

But it wasn’t close enough for Crowley. He had waited for this moment way too long, maybe all his life, to just be _near_ Aziraphale. He wanted to press their chests together, crush his mouths on the pink lips and so he led Aziraphale to the nearest tree, almost sending them both tumbling for he refused to break the kiss for even a millisecond, and pressed him against the bark of a massive oak tree. 

‘Sorry ‘bout your coat’, he breathed into Aziraphale’s mouth labouredly. 

‘N- N- Nevermind’ 

They kissed passionately, desperately, as if they were running out of time and this was their last chance. Crowley was the first to open his mouth a little bit, let his tongue run over the angel’s hot bottom lip. It wasn’t pink anymore but red and swollen. He could feel Aziraphale’s heart beating against his tongue through the lip’s sensitive skin. The angel let out a startled moan at this touch and the sound made several hot and cold shivers run down Crowley’s spine. 

_Oh, this was perfect. How could anything on this wretched planet feel so bloody perfect? _

Then suddenly, in an unspoken agreement the kiss became painfully slow and soft and sweet. Somehow, this made Crowley’s heart jump and stutter even more. 

Why did this feel so much like a goodbye? This was supposed to be a beginning. Crowley had everything he’d ever dreamed of right here, in this very moment and he didn’t long for more. For the first time in eons he felt complete and he should be exploding from sheer joy right now and he did but… 

There was a wistful quality to the way Aziraphale kept repeating his name, said he loved him again and again. And when he trailed the angel’s jawline with little kisses, placed one on each of his closed eyelids it had a finality to it, that made his stomach churn. 

There was also the fact, that Aziraphale’s skin was so unnaturally wet. Why was it so wet? Was he crying? Why was everything so wrongly perfect and so perfectly wrong? 

‘Don’t cry, angel. We’ll be happy. I’ll make you so, so happy’, he murmured into his ears as he placed a kiss there. 

But the angel kept repeating the same words, over and over, between kisses and sobs and desperate inhales: ‘I’m so sorry, Crowley, I’m so sorry.’ 

Then Crowley fell deep down into the dark realms of unconsciousness. 

_***_

When he awoke he felt light, weightless even. The first rays of the rising sun made the dew on the grass he was lying on glisten like a shimmering blanket. For some reason, the sensation was almost overwhelming, everything seemed much sharper in its definition and clear-cut than usual. Above him a bird began to chirp and the sound almost pierced his ears. 

What was going on? He certainly hadn’t drunk enough yesterday to be hungover. A little to his right he spotted Aziraphale, shivering in the cold morning air. He crossed the distance and tried to shake him awake. 

‘Aziraphale, are you alright? What happened? I remember kissing you and then –‘ his voiced trailed of at the memory which was even more overwhelming than his newly sharpened senses. The angel sat up with some difficulty and a peculiar sadness in his eyes. Just then a crow landed on a patch of grass next to them and screeched loudly. The sound exploded in Crowley’s ears and made him flinch and gasp in pain. 

‘Ah, yes. That would be the higher sensitivity to worldly stimuli then’, Aziraphale said softly. ‘Don’t worry, you will get used to it before you can dwell on it for too long.’ 

Why did he look so incredibly sad? What the hell was going on? 

‘Angel, I don’t understand, …’, he said slowly, ‘care to explain what happened?’ 

‘My dear boy, it seems we have traded places. I had entertained the feeble hope it wouldn’t happen to us, but I was foolish in believing we would be spared and this is the punishment for my hubris. I really am truly sorry.’ He looked so small and lost it made Crowley’s heart ache. 

‘It’s alright, angel’, he soothed and took him into a comforting embrace. _Traded places_… Why did this seem so familiar? Then it hit him. Agnes Nutter’s cryptic words when he had sought advice about Adam’s book shop. _The symmetry there shall be between the two of you_. They were like mirror images of each other. First Aziraphale had been Crowley’s guardian angel and now… now it was the other way round. Crowley was an angel. His destiny was to care for Aziraphale. As he looked down on his lover he realized he had never breathed that freely in his life. 

‘We should go somewhere warm, angel’, he said because some things never changed and his name for Aziraphale was one of them. ‘You’ll freeze to death if we stay here any longer.’ Together they got up from the damp lawn. However, Aziraphale did not move one inch further. There was something he seemed to have on his mind. 

‘I totally understand if you don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore, Crowley. What I did was selfish. I knew what to expect and gave in to the temptation anyway. Life as you knew it, was destroyed because of me –‘ 

Due to an unexpected pair of lips pressed on his, Aziraphale found it temporarily impossible to continue his speech. 

‘Crowley!’, he gasped when they separated again a few minutes later, ‘that was frightfully careless of you! How could you be so sure nothing dangerous would have happened like last time.’ 

‘I wasn’t’, Crowley said airily and grinned. ‘Come on, angel. Let’s go home, I’ll make you some cocoa and wrap you into a warm blanket, you can’t say no to that.’ 

‘But, aren’t you…aren’t you the least bit upset?’ Aziraphale’s surprise was almost palpable and when there was no indication on Crowley’s side about any negative emotions it turned gradually into relief and, from there, evolved into elation. 

‘Upset?’, Crowley laughed, ‘Why on earth should I be upset, angel? I can do miracles and be lazy for the rest of eternity while you have to go to work now and deal with all the bad-tempered humans. And morning commute. And ducks! Bloody ducks. Real bastards those. Spawn of Satan. If someone should be upset, it’s you not me.’ 

Aziraphale’s face fell. ‘You know it’s not that simple, Crowley’, he added softly, ‘Being a guardian angel is a very lonely business. The only one you’ll ever truly be able to interact with is your assigned human since you always have to be close to them and-‘ 

‘Aziraphale’, Crowley said earnestly, all playfulness gone, ‘If you ever again dare insinuate being able to interact only with you is not enough for me, I will… I will never talk to you again’, he concluded somewhat lamely. ‘Honestly, angel. I can now devote my entire existence to protecting you and making you happy and being…_ good_, you know what I mean? That’s perfect, that’s all I ever wanted, really.’ 

At that, Aziraphale said ‘Oh, Crowley’ like a swooning damsel and broke into the most adorable, loving smile (which made Crowley go alternatively red and white in the face) before he pulled him in for another kiss, all clumsy because of the fact that their lips were numb from the cold but glorious nevertheless. Soon, however, Crowley ended the kiss and looked at Aziraphale reproachfully. 

‘I swear to God, if you die from pneumonia because you refuse to go to a warmer place-‘ 

‘You’ll never talk to me again?’, Aziraphale added helpfully. 

‘Oh, shut up’. Then after a pause in which he carefully eyed Aziraphale from the side he added: ‘Will _you_ be okay, angel? Being human and all?’ 

‘Well, why shouldn’t I? There are so many books and plays to explore and I’ve always wanted to try gravlax with dill sauce… Maybe this delightful chap Mr Young even needs someone to help him in his bookshop? What do you think?’ 

‘Sure, why not?’, Crowley nodded. He’d take care of it. 

Aziraphale sighed. ‘You know, I _am_ a bit terrified, admittedly. That’s quite a huge change. But I’ll get used to it.’ 

‘I’ll be there for you’, said Crowley and took his hand. 

And so the angel and the former angel, their fingers firmly laced together, wandered into the very first day of the rest of their lives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this has been it, guys, my first ever fan fiction! Hope you enjoyed it! :)  
If you want to follow me on tumblr my name is realitaetsresistent.  
Now, I guess, I'm gonna sleep for a day because I stayed up until 3 for a week to write this.  
Anyway, thanks for reading, let me know if you liked it.  
The title is from 'Movement' by Hozier which was my major inspiration for the fic. I basically saw the whole plot in my head like a movie the first time I listened to the song.


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